Drawing on the perspectives of history and psychology, this course will explore the experiences of survivors of the Nazi Holocaust. We shall attempt to understand not only some of what survivors endured within the destruction but also in their lives since the Holocaust-their lives specifically as survivors.
A special emphasis throughout will be on investigating, and developing, our capacity to listen to survivors. Because survivors use the same words we do, yet have experienced realities totally alien to most of us, we shall continually return to ways we may think we understand survivors yet not actually do so.
The aspects of survivors' experience on which we shall especially focus include: massive psychological trauma; desolation and destruction of identity; the roles of shame, guilt, grief and rage in the aftermath; the need to "bear witness;" the impact of images of survivors in popular culture; the role of Holocaust memorials, museums, and testimony projects; survivors' experiences re-creating family, community, and faith. While the primary emphasis will be on survivors, there will also be a number of classes devoted to understanding the motives of Holocaust perpetrators, bystanders, and rescuers/resisters.
Writing assignments for this seminar will include both journal writing and interpretive essays. Theatre and visual art will also play a role. On occasion, we will be joined by survivors and thus have the chance to talk with them directly. There will be a good many evening films as well, so no student should register for this seminar who would not be free to view films on Monday evening between 7:00 and 9:00 p.m.
Reading will include selections from Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust; Elie Wiesel, Night; Primo Levi's Survival in Auschwitz and The Drowned and the Saved; Charlotte Delbo, None of Us Will Return; Jean Amery, At the Mind's Limits; Isabella Leitner, Fragments of Isabella; Christopher Browning, Ordinary Men; Art Spiegelman, Maus; and a number of excerpts from survivors' audio and video testimony.

Syllabi are available to current LSA students. IMPORTANT: These syllabi are provided to give students a general idea about the courses, as offered by LSA departments and programs in prior academic terms. The syllabi do not necessarily reflect the assignments, sequence of course materials, and/or course expectations that the faculty and departments/programs have for these same courses in the current and/or future terms.